Thursday, September 04, 2008

The Most Radioactive College?

I was somewhat amused to find NMSU-Carlsbad listed on the Bad Education list (ht) as the "Most Radioactive," a designation due to WIPP, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, where nuclear waste (mostly in the form of gloves, clothes, tools, soil, and the like that has been contaminated by plutonium) sealed into drums is stored beneath 2000 feet of earth and salt beds. This, of course, has no real connection with this branch of New Mexico State University, and is a good 25 miles away in the middle of the desert; but, then, the list gives "members of the class of 2008 slept with an average of just 2.75 people" as a reason for classifying Harvard as "Most Overrated," so that tells you the tenor of the list.

What actually amused me more is that I graduated high school in Carlsbad, and so am quite familiar with 'Harvard on the hill', as the people there half-affectionately, half-sarcastically (or all-affectionately, or all-sarcastically, depending on their mood) call it. It's a branch of NMSU that's designed to function as a community college; it advertises itself as one and only offers smaller certification programs and two-year degrees. And, at least when I was there, it had a reputation for fulfilling that function quite well. I'm extraordinarily puzzled by the reference to "the cost of room and board"; as far as I am aware, NMSU-C has no student residences, precisely because it is a community college, and so does not charge room and board. But the authors of the list seem to have thought that NMSU-C was simply the NMSU, and thus a four-year college.